Essay evised

Bauhaus. The Beginning of Industrial design
The benefit of hindsight allows us to explore the way that Bauhaus students and masters used the new technology and processes available to them to develop a new kind of design. The type of design we now refer to these days as industrial design. Including how the theories and designs produced during the time of the schools existence have had a lasting effect on designs being produce by present day industrial designers. My initial conclusions are that it was the combining of the arts and new technology which has lead to the mass production of commodities that we now see today. The many and varied designs that were produced are products of the era in the sense that they were very minimalist instead of the extravagant designs that were the norm before the opening of the school. A characteristic which can be put down to the fact that it was post war and in the middle of the great depression and so money and resources would have been scarce. This is possibly a major factor why the minimal no frills designs managed to find popularity. This minimalist approach became the foundations of the Design era Known as Modernism. By tracing the history of the famous school we can see the lasting influences that it has had on modern day design as well as the way the teaching style developed by the school in the early years has been continued through to the modern day. This continuation has only been possible through the continued refinement by the many masters and teachers of the school. This refinement has shaped it into a very effective and successful education style that has been adopted by many design schools worldwide.
The Bauhaus (House of Building) School of design began in 1919. It was initially located in the German town of Weimer by an accomplished architect of the times, Walter Gropius. Despite the fact that the school was foundered by an architect it did not run an architecture program till several years after its opening. Walter Gropius had a vision. He wanted to develop new education method and style in the area of design. He was convinced that the best way to achieve this was through Handicraft. He saw it necessary that the school become a workshop and that the students would be taught by artists and craftsmen. The intention of this being to remove the division between that of Fine arts and that of applied arts. Gropius tried to achieve this by having duel directorships of the Bauhaus workshops. Students were instructed by a “Master of form” (the master of form being an artist) and a “Master of craft” (the master of craft being a craftsman). Gropius intended the pairing of the two masters to make up for the lack of individuals who combine Art and craft. However this arrangement proved problematic as there was tension within the group psychology.(Rainer 29-37). Up until Gropius decided to combine the styles there was a clear division between the two art forms and the education of these was largely theoretical. Despite this the schools purpose was redirected in 1923. It had become apparent to Gropius that for the school to survive in a technical civilization its programs had to change. The Bauhaus would now produce prototypes for mass production. The aspects of function and form were to be applied to the new prototypes that students were producing. This could be viewed as the first step into creating the world of industrial design. Amassing allowances was becoming ever more difficult for this new type of education style and so in 1925 when the Thueringer government stopped supporting the school economically the school was moved and found its new home in Dessau. After the move in 1926 the Masters where promoted to professors. Despite the success of the school Gropius Left the Bauhaus in 1928. His successor was a Swiss architect Hannes Meyer. Meyer pushed the scientific development in design training. He was dismissed due to his inability to lead in 1930. German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe then became head of the school and turned the Bauhaus in to more of a vocational university before it was closed in 1933 under the Nazi regime.(www.bauhaus.de)
During the time of the Bauhaus’s existence there was an economic depression. This depression was worst felt in Germany. The depression was due to the fact that post World War 1 Germany had very large debts to pay and also heavy restrictions placed on their industries. This was because the allied countries feared Germany becoming to powerfully once more and restarting the war. To pay and service the large debts the German government owed. The German reserve bank began printing money to the point where money became worthless. This plunged the county into a massive depression, the one that is now refer to as the Great Depression. Money and resources (Not just raw materials like steel and wood but fuel and even food) were short in the community and so people no longer could afford or justify the extravagant items which were main stream before the Great War. Wants became needs and so design followed suit. Designs were stripped back to the basics, Framing became exposed, Function, aesthetic and form became very important. By designing in this way cost of materials as well as the cost of production where able to be kept to a minimum. A good example of this style of design is, Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chair. The framing is exposed and made of round tubing bend to create the form of the chair. This chair consists of only two main materials, round tubing and leather. Even though the chairs framing consists of only round tubing it is crafted in a way that it creates the form of a fully framed lounge chair. The chair itself is simple, aesthetically pleasing and uses minimal materials. With the scarcity of wealth and resources it is easy to see how this type of design found popularity. People felt like they were getting a no frills item. One that did the job it was assigned with no fancy add ons. This type of design is also well suited to the mass production methods that were being developed during the times of the early 20th century. Mass productions of objects meant that large numbers of objects could be produced quickly, cheaply and accurately.
Despite the Fact that the Bauhaus was closed in 1933 by the Nazis it was re-opened in Chicago in 1937. The German Bauhaus design styles had a large impact in America. This lead to the Successor to the German Bauhaus dubbed the” New Bauhaus”. The New Bauhaus adopted the curriculum of the original Bauhaus which had been developed by Walter Gropius, other heads of the school and masters in Weimer and Dessau. The New school in Chicago was founded by previous master Laszlo Moholy-Nagy of the German school. The teaching methods and curriculum developed in the early stages of the school under Walter Gropius were use as a starting point for the school in Chicago and then went on to be further developed and refined. Some of the developments to the curriculum included a more important role in the study of natural and human sciences. Photography was more widely used and prominent within the school in Chicago. The training which students received in the area of mechanical technique became much more sophisticated than that which was taught in the school in Germany a vital step towards modern day industrial design. However the way the school was run got tweaked to meet the requirements of American society. Moholy-Nagy was succeeded By Serge Chermayeff. Though the teaching style and aim of the school remained very similar to that of the original Bauhaus in Weimer. Later in the 1950s The New Bauhaus integrated with the Illinois Institute of Technology. It is still to this day part of the Illinois Institute of Technology and is regarded and respected as a professionally oriented school of design. This continuation of the school and its unique teaching styles to the present day has allowed it to shape the way industrial design is approached and the designs that are being produced. Since the opening of the Bauhaus an industrial designers primary focus is designing and developing products and prototypes that are well resolved in their function and form and can be easily mass produced. Now days the industrial designer designs the product itself and a lot of the time the method and process in which it is produced. Even in our own school of design (Victoria school of architecture and design) we approach design in a very hands on and technical way and consider the way in which items are produced. An influence that traces its origins right back in the 1920s Bauhaus and Walter Gropius’s vision.
The Masters and students of the early Bauhaus moved away from the traditional materials and were instead were fanatical about metal. This is very evident in a lot of the furniture designs. With the use of these new materials designers could exploit the properties of metal to produce new simple elegant designs. Tube steel was lighter, easily worked, cheap. Steel has flex and is easily bent to exact measurements. For the Bauhaus designers it was pure, Clean and hygienic. The perfect material to make a beautiful home.(Labuttis) Later after the conclusion of World War two when the Bauhaus had made it’s way to America the aluminium industry took off. It became a very popular material as designers started to look at the way it could be applied to the home. It was no longer something just applied to military products. Aluminium had the strength of steel at half the weight. This opened up the door to many more possibilities. With the drive that the cold war between Russia and the US was providing it pushed the direction of home design into the area of portable nomadic furniture and appliances “The aluminium house was the post-war soldier’s house- demountable, temporary, on the go” (Colomina, Beatriz. Brennan, Annmarie and Kim, Jeannie). It was the exploration and exploitation of new materials which allowed the designers to mass produce objects more easily and produce very modernist style objects. The techniques used and developed at the Bauhaus are still used in modern day designs and is easily seen in a lot of modern day furniture design.
It is easy to see when we trace the history of Bauhaus design from its founding in Weimer in 1919 by Walter Gropius to the modern day where it now resides in the US, how this ideology has played a major role in the way we now approach industrial design. It gave birth to industrial design. The learning techniques that were first developed in the early days has turned us from artists or Craftsmen to a combination of both. We also need to include the refinements to the style that were added when the school moved to America. The additions to the coarse and slight focus change brought the aspects of ergonomics and photography into our world of design and have meant that an Industrial designer is able to create a product from start to finish. We have a clear understanding of how people interact with it and are more than capable of present it. Industrial design would be impossible without the hands on approach. To resolve ideas and concepts we need to experiment with different materials and model and experiment with different media. The combination of the art side with that of the craft means that we can take our idea from the drawing board to the workshop with ease. The introduction of new materials such as Aluminium and the techniques of working these materials allowed the creation of very modern designs and has changed the way we view the beauty of an object. Without the use and introduction of these materials many of the designs would not have been achievable both in aesthetic appeal and structurally. The orientation of prototype production has laid the foreground for modern day mass production. This has been very influential because this technique has spread to all corners of design not just that of industrial. In the 21st century the majority of products we use and interact with are in fact mass produced. Now when we design something in industrial design we don’t just design the object but the process in which it is made.

















Rainer K, Wick. “Teaching at the Bauhaus” Hatje cantz publishers Germany. 2000. Page: 29-37.
Hochman, Elaines. “Bauhaus: Crucible of Modernism”. 1st edition. Fromm international, New York. 1997.
Whitford, Frank. “Bauhaus”. Herbert press, London. 1985
Colomina, Beatriz. Brennan, Annmarie and Kim, Jeannie. “Cold war Hothouse: inventing postwar culture from cockpit to playboy”. Princeton architectural press.
Labuttis, Klaus. www.dezignare.com/newsletter/bauhausmovement.html
Also looked at:
www.qdesign.co.nz/designhist-bauh.html
www.germanculture.com.ua/labrary/weekly
www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/index.htm

Winner- Political ergonomics

This reading was a very good extension of the lecture about the political acrhitecture of Deli. It went more into depth and on a much more world oriented scale then what had been disscussed in the lecture. it again brough to light aspects of design that i had never concidered. after reading this i then relised that this also helped to clarify an earlier reading in my mind. that of Cold war Hot house. i found that these to papers tied intogether very well. Cold war Hot house gave a perfect example of design following and influencing politics. The was that Russia and USA victories where determine whos citizens had the better life style and this was determined by the appilences and objects they owned.

Lecture on the design and acrhitecture of Deli

This was a most interesting lecture as it brought to my attension a totally different side of design and architectecture that i had never concidered. The way that design and acrhitecture had been used to influence the people of India in a political sense was very intreging. After sitting through this lecture i have found myself looking at the way design has been used to influence politics and vice verser. It can be used to dominated the citizens or give them a sence of cultural pride, settle unrest or in fact cause it. this lecture then followed on into the reading we did.

Wassily chair

Draft essay

Bauhaus. The Beginning of Industrial design
The Benefit of Hindsight allows us to explore the way that Bauhaus students and masters used the new technology and processes available to them to develop a new kind of design. The type of design we now refer to these days as industrial design. Including how the theory’s and designs produced during the time of the schools existence have had a lasting effect on designs being produce by present day by industrial designers. My initial conclusions are that it was the combining of the arts and new technology which has lead to the mass production of commodities that we now see today. I feel that the designs that were produced are products of the era in the sense that they were very minimalist instead of the extravagant designs that were the norm before the opening of the school. This can be put down to the fact that it was post war and in the middle of the great depression and so money and resources would have been scarce. This could have been why the minimal no frills designs would have found popularity. This minimalist approach would have been the foundations of the Design era Known as Modernism. By tracing the history of the Famous school we can see the lasting influences that it has had on modern day design and the roll it has had in shaping modern day industrial design education style.
The Bauhaus (House of Building) School of design Began in 1919. And was initially located in the German town of Weimer by an accomplished architect of the times, Walter Gropius. Despite the fact that the school was foundered by an architect it did not run an architecture program till several years after its opening. Walter Gropius wanted to develop new education methods in the area of design. He was sure that the best way to achieve this was through Handicraft. He saw it necessary that the school become a workshop and that the students would be taught by artists and craftsmen. The intention of this being to remove the division between that of Fine arts and that of applied arts. However the schools purpose was redirected in 1923. It became apparent to Gropius that for the school to survive in a Technical civilization its programs had to change. The Bauhaus would now produce prototypes for mass production. The aspects of Function and aesthetic were to be applied to the new prototypes being produced. This could be viewed as the first step into the world of industrial design. It was becoming evermore difficult to amass allowances for this new type of education and so in 1925 when the Thueringer government stopped supporting the school economically the school found a new home in Dessau. Later in 1926 the Masters where promoted to professors. Despite the success of the school Gropius Left the school in 1928. His successor was A Swiss architect Hannes Meyer. He pushed the scientific development in design training. He was dismissed due to his inability to lead in 1930. German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe then became head of the school and turned the Bauhaus in to more of a vocational university before it was closed in 1933 under the Nazi regime.
During the time of the Bauhaus’s existence there was an economic depression. This depression was worst felt in Germany. The depression was due to the fact that post World War 1 Germany had very large Debts to Pay and also heavy restrictions placed on their industries because the allied countries feared Germany becoming to powerfully once more and restarting the war. To pay and service the large debts the German government owed. The German reserve bank began printing money to the point where money became worthless. This plunged the county into a massive depression, the one we now refer to as the Great Depression. Money and resources were short in the community and so people no longer could afford the extravagant items which were main stream before the Great War. Wants became needs and so design followed suit. Designs were stripped back to the basics, Framing became exposed, Function, aesthetic and form became very important. A good example of this type of design is: Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chair. The framing is exposed and made of round tubing bend to create the form of the chair. The chair is simple, aesthetically pleasing and uses minimal materials. With the scarcity of wealth and resources it is easy to see how this type of design found popularity. The type of design is also well suited to the mass production methods that had been developed during the times. Mass productions of objects meant that large numbers of objects could be produced quickly and cheaply.
Despite the Fact that the Bauhaus was closed in 1933 by the Nazi’s it was re-opened in Chicago in 1937. The early Bauhaus design styles had a large impact in America. The Successor to the Bauhaus dubbed The New Bauhaus” adopted the curriculum of the original Bauhaus that had been developed by Walter Gropius in Weimer and Dessau. The New school in Chicago was founded by previous master Laszlo Moholy-Nagy of the German school. The teaching methods and curriculum developed in the early stages of the school under Walter Gropius were use as a starting point for the school in Chicago and then went on to be further developed. Some of the developments to the curriculum included a more important role in the study of natural and human sciences, Photography was more widely used and prominent within the school in Chicago and the training which students received in the area of mechanical technique became much more sophisticated than that which was taught in the school in Germany. However the way the school was run was tweaked to meet the requirements of American society. Moholy-Nagy was succeeded By Serge Chermayeff. But the teaching style and aim remained very similar to that of the original Bauhaus. Later in the 1950s The New Bauhaus integrated with the Illinois Institute of Technology. It is still to this day part of the Illinois Institute of Technology and is regarded and respected as a professionally oriented school of design. This continuation of the school and its unique teaching styles to the present day has allowed it to shape the way industrial design is approached and the designs which have been produced. Even in our own school of design (Victoria) we approach design in a very hands on and technical way. An influence you may say has its origins right back in the 1920s.
The Masters and students of the early Bauhaus moved away from the traditional materials and were instead were fanatical about metal. This is very evident in a lot of the furniture designs. With the use of these new materials designers could exploit the properties of metal to produce new simple elegant designs. Tube steel was lighter, easily worked, cheap. Steel has flex and is easily bent to exact measurements. For the Bauhaus designers it was pure, Clean and hygienic. The perfect material to make a beautiful home. It was the exploration and exploitation of new materials which allowed the designers to mass produce objects more easily and produce very modernist style objects. The techniques used and developed at the Bauhaus are still used in modern day designs and is easily seen in a lot of modern day furniture design.
It is easy to see when we trace the history of Bauhaus design from its founding in 1919 to the modern day how it has played a major roll in the way we now approach industrial design. The learning techniques that were first developed in the early days has turned us from artists or Craftsmen to a combination of both. Industrial design would be almost impossible without this hands on approach. The introduction of new materials and techniques of working these materials allowed the creation of very modern designs and has change the way we view beauty. Also the orientation of prototype production has laid the foreground for modern day mass production. As now when we design something in industrial design we don’t just design the object but the process in which it is made.

Marcin Ramocki

HISTORY READING: DIY: the militant embrace of technology by Marcin Ramocki.

http:/ramocki.net/

Polish artist,

Through his art he is trying to build metaphors via software.

His reasearch is rooted in the development of simple video,sound and animation based software.

Also a director of documentories

one of his more famous projects is:
Torcito project.

In the intro he posses to questions
The first being: Why do we feel compelled to mess with electronic devices and call it art?
And: Is what we do a continuation of modernist principals or an all together different thing and if so what kind of thing is it?

He then uses three historical readings to help us understand how our embrace of technology has come about.

Maxist model, Alienation of labour.
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacrum and simulation
Markenzie War, The Hacker Manifesto

Through these three readings he shows to us how our alienation has changed sinse the introduction of mass production


After this he the goes on to explain types of software and hardware haccking exist.

To rap it up Ramocki is trying to tell us that the thing that relates all these types of works together is that they have a militant intension and straegy in revealing the aspects of technology that we take for granted. "figure out whats inside the blackbox (and why it was made) is becoming the official duty of artistic communities"

He answers the other question with the belief that we mess with electronics because he thinks we see it as a source of meaning for our generation. It's how we connect with the surrounding reality which is mostly made up of code and technology.

We are now breaking the alienation of labour and through reverse engineering we are able to understand the technology better and understand the means of production.

Related topic: The revival of Handicraft

Social dimensions of wearable computers, Ana Viseu

This was a very straight-forward reading. it was well set out and easy to understand. The reading itself was very neutral as it gave and developed good points for and against wearable computers.

It gave us a good grounding and understanding of where the wearable computer has developed from and where it could be going to in the future.

Its interesting to see how wearable computers are now becoming part of the body, an extention you mite say as where in the past they were more an add on.

The social implications where also very interesting in the way that i had never concidered. To think that our own wearable computer could be used to monitor and spy on you is not very appealing to say the least.

Cold war Hot house. Intro

This was a very interesting reading. Despite the fact that we only red the introduction i found that it did a very good job of conveying alot of information in a short period of time.

I was suprised to learn how much of an effect the cold war between Russia and the US had influenced the coarse of design in the period.

The thing that i found most interesting i think is that fact that Russia and America fort over whos citizens had the better life style and that the strength of the nation was based on the Technology in the kitchen rather then the size of their bombs.

The reading also illistrtated how nervous the public were. this can be illistrated in some of the designs to come out of this era. In the way that the were almosted designed with nomadic intensions, people could up and move at the drop of a hat.

The Car and House also became safe havens basiclly miniture bomb shelters to protects its owners should the worst come to worse.

The extravigant objects where created to lull people into a false sense of security. to occupie them to save them thinking about the dangers Knocking at the door.

I then came to the conclusion that we even today we use objects to distract us from the truth. We don't think about the wars going on in other parts of the world or the millions starving in Africa instead we think about which Ipod we want to get next.

Post modernism lecture.

This was after the Modernist movement and if gave rise to such thinmgs as pop culture, People breaking the mold, Art for the Masses.

Objects were made to appeal to the masses.

During this time there was the Hippy and Feminist movements

Everything followed suit. Hair styles, clothes, Lituature, Philosyify, MTV, Ice creme and even underwear.

Wars During this time: Korean war, Veitnam, Cold war

The Aluminium industry exploded

In a general sence as apposed to Modernism where design satisfied needs. In Post modernism it switched back and Design satisfied wants.

Modernism lecture.

Basically what i drew from this lecturn is that modernism came about because of the times.
The time being that of the great depression. Money was short so people did not have money to throw away on extravigant things and so the designs change to fit this new life style.

Designs became refined, Stripped back to the bare minimum. Basic forms anf simple geometric structures became popular the structure of the form became exposed.

Also it was at this time the Bauhaus was started and this in turn added in the development of what we now refer to as industrial design.

Initial Bibliography

Bauhaus: Crucible of Modernism. By Elaines Hochman
1st edition
published, New york: Fromm international
1997

Bauhaus and Bauhaus people, Revises edition. by Eckhard Neuman
Published, New york: Van Nostrand Reinhold
1993

Bauhaus. Frank Whitford
Published, London: Herbert Press
1985

Thesis Proposal

The Bauhaus school began in Weimer, Germany, in 1919 by an accomplished architect named Walter Gropius. Bauhaus designs have since become some of the most influential designs in the 20th and present, 21st century. During its time the Bauhaus school moved to three different German cities. Initially seen in Weimer, it then moved to Dessau in 1925, and finally to Berlin in 1932. However, it later closed in 1933 under the Nazi regime.
The goal of the school was to better craftsmen and artists alike. However, the school wanted to remove the distinction between fine arts and applied arts. In 1923 there was a change in the way the school operated. The school started to move away from handicraft, and instead, started to incorporate new technology and processes and united this with the arts in a move towards producing prototypes that could then go into mass production. The idea was to produce an object that satisfied both function and aesthetic aspects.
It was this move into mass production and combining the arts that has had a lasting effect on modern design. It is easy to say that this was the beginning of the modernist movement.
In my thesis I want to explore the way that Bauhaus students and masters used the new technology and processes to step away from the design styles that had become main stream at the time of the Bauhaus opening. How the theory’s and designs have had a lasting effect on designs being produce in the present day and paying special attention to the way it has shaped the face of industrial design. My initial conclusions are that it was the combining of the arts and new technology which has lead to the mass production of commodities that we know today. Also it was the beginning of the movement known as modernism. It was this combination which started the type of design we now refer to as Industrial design and if the Bauhaus school had not existed or had in a different era and place that current design would be totally different to what we see today.
I feel that the designs that were produced were products of the era in the sense that they were very minimalist instead of the extravagant designs that were the norm before the opening of the school. This can be put down to the fact that it was post war and in the middle of the great depression and so money and resources would have been scarce. This is why the minimal no frills designs would have found popularity.

Willam Morris " the revival of Handicraft"

After reading and analysing this text i came to some immediate conculsions that then morphed into different ones after the discussions in class.

My immediate conculsion was that he was againgst the industrialisation of products and wanted people to realise that we have destoryed the beauty that was once incorporated into products made by masters in there chosen trades. Now products are made with no differing features and millions of the same products roll off the production line. Each persons task has been stripped back so that they preform one remedial task repeatedly and thus has lead to unhappiness in the work force as employees dirive not enjoy ment from there one task.

We are forced to buy commodities that do not specifically fit the job we want them to do because the capitalists produce the commodities that will generate them the most money. We have also lost the ability to make the things that would best suit the purpose for which we require.

However as we reviewed the text in class i started to realise that he was not total against mass production and the division of labour. He actually granted it some merits, However he was instead trying to say that we need to review how we use this technology to gain the best of both handicraft and the new technology and proccess.

Finally to wrap it up. The one point that i would draw from this text and what he is trying to convey is that the beauty is not the object itself but infact the joy one derives from making it.